Representatives of the Afghan government, the UN and the major donor countries and institutions will assemble in Berlin on 31 March and 1 April for the first high-level diplomatic meeting on Afghanistan in more than two years.
In February 2004, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the major insurgent group, announced creation of a three-member negotiation commission and a "diplomatic offensive" aimed at obtaining the release of hundreds of its imprisoned members in exchange for about 60 military and political hostages it holds.
The Government of Nepal is creating local civilian militias – known as Rural Volunteer Security Groups and Peace Committees – in what risks becoming an alarming escalation of its conflict with Maoist rebels.
This briefing compares the mandate of the Independent Monitoring Commission for Northern Ireland (IMC) with those of two recent European examples of the monitoring and enforcement of compliance with peace agreements: the unsuccessful Kosovo Verification Mission (KVM) of 1998-1999, and the much more fruitful mission of the Office of the High Representative (OHR) in Bosnia and Herzegovina since 1995. It attempts to identify lessons from those earlier experiences that may help the IMC carry out its mission in the context of carrying forward the Good Friday peace process.
When delegates to Afghanistan’s Constitutional Loya Jirga assemble in Kabul on 13 December 2003, they will begin debating and ultimately deciding upon a draft document that is intended to establish a strong presidency while accommodating the other dominant figures at the country’s centre.
The International Crisis Group is publishing a series of reports on the problems of repatriation for Burundi; the first report, Burundi’s Refugees: Defusing the Land Time-bomb,* emphasises how both the transitional government and the international community have thus far given too little attention to this issue, which is essential for lasting peace in the region. This report, Refugees and Internally Displaced in Burundi The Urgent Need for a Consensus on their Repatriation and Reintegration, explores the urgent need for a consensus on repatriation and reintegration of refugees and internally displaced in Burundi.
With the collapse of the ceasefire and peace talks between government and Maoist insurgents, Nepal appears to be in for months more of bloody fighting.
The decision to award the Nobel Peace Prize to Shirin Ebadi, a courageous human rights lawyer, has focused renewed attention on the deep divisions and tensions within Iran.
This briefing is one of a series of occasional ICG briefing papers and reports that will address the issue of political reform in the Middle East and North Africa. The absence of a credible political life in most parts of the region, while not necessarily bound to produce violent conflict, is intimately connected to a host of questions that affect its longer-term stability:
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